Month: October 2009

You should have seen it: a crowd of people two football fields long, swilling Heineken Light, Dos Equis, Liberty Ale and Ravenswood Lodi Zinfandel, throwing beach balls around, clogging and contra-dancing to John Prine. I could have sworn this was Santa Cruz when I saw an irrepressible guy in his 50s near the front, leaping up, shaking his shirtsleeves, waving his elbows and doing the chicken dance to “Grandpa Was a Carpenter.” Dude looked just like Edward Abbey. There was some weird stuff too, of course; some guy about 100 feet from the stage took out a violin and started sawing away on it right in the middle of “Angel from Montgomery.” Prine, as usual, put on a perfect performance; he pulled out “Crooked Piece of Time,” which I’d never heard live before, and he was positively glowing when Lyle Lovett — next in line on the Banjo Stage —…

You are faced with some hard choices this weekend if you’re coming to San Francisco for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, probably the greatest free music festival in the nation, especially if you like that KPIG-style Americana as much as I do. It’s kind of like the legendary Fat Fry, but bigger and with no admission charge. Friday is easy. The great John Prine will be playing at 415 p.m. that day on the Banjo Stage, and if you’ve never seen him in concert (I’ve seen him eight times) then you would be crazy to miss this. (who knows how many times he’ll be back on the festival circuit…) And you don’t have to budge from your spot when the concert is over; Lyle Lovett — complete with his “Large Band” — will be playing the same stage at 545 p.m. Saturday will test your loyalties and force you to make painful…